Propel 2.0

Jan 03, 2012

It has been long over due. For those of you who have been waiting, thank you. To any new users who find this, I hope you enjoy. I planned to include more features than those of which are being released, but in lieu of some bugs introduced with WordPress 3.3 which render the 1.x branch of Propel useless, I decided it was better to hide some partially implemented 2.0 features than to fix the bugs in 1.7 or postpone the release of 2.0. Before you upgrade to from 1.7 to 2.0, it is strongly recommend you take a full backup of your database. The major changes being released are largely internal.

New Features (2.0)

Propel 1.7 moved to custom post types. Propel 2.0 now takes full advantage of the default UI functionality and used the interface provided by custom post types. This allows for better integration with WordPress as a whole, and Propel now plays well with other plugins that modify custom post types.

In 1.7 project and task meta were stored as a single key as a serialized array. This made filtering data impossible. Each piece of data is now stored as an individual metakey (documentation will be provided on how to take advantage of this). This is why you will receive a database update notice when you upgrade from Propel 1.7 to 2.0.

Changed the priority from 1-10 to use Low, Medium, and High instead. After the upgrade, any tasks previously with a priority of 1-3 will be low priority. Tasks with a priority with 4-7 will have a medium priority and tasks with a priority 8-10 will have a high priority.

Changed progress from intervals of one to intervals of five. Upon upgrading, your previous tasks progress will be rounded to the nearest five.

Removed the shortcode for a frontend display (sorry! I know some people used this, but it is kind of unnecessary. I will explain how to display your projects and tasks in the frontend in another post later)

Ability to categorize tasks

A better interface for adding terms to tasks

Ability to assign projects to clients

Ability to globally turn on/off start date, end date, project progress, and project client (keep in mind, using the "Screen Options" at the top of your WordPress admin pages, you can hide columns and widgets).

Task "type" taxonomy - giving you the ability to classify tasks as bugs or features.

Partially Implemented / Hidden Features (2.1 ETA ~1.5 months)

A taxonomy to reflect the "state" of a task - Not Started, Started, Completed, Delivered, etc...

Ability to add custom task "types"

Better filtering (if you have a lot of tasks, it is very hard to manage the tasks via the All Tasks page)

Roles and capabilities. In its current release, everyone can see all the tasks. The goal here is to create two "roles" - Project Manager and Developer. Developers would only see tasks assigned to them, while project managers would be able to see all tasks.

Email notifications when a user is assigned a task, a task is updated, or a comment is made on a task.

Planned Features (2.2+)

A full featured theme (this will likely be a paid add-on)

GitHub post-receive hook endpoint (add comments to tasks and complete tasks when you commit to github)

Integration with WP-Invoice (need help from the WP-Invoice guys for this)

Ability to group tasks into "task lists" or "milestones" or "sprints" or "iterations" or whatever project management paradigm calls it.